How to make a bass preset from scratch?

don_joe

don_joe

Experienced
Hello!

I need some help from you guys on how to make bass presets on the Axe FX II that can surprise even experienced bass players :) I've tried a few times but it didn't sound even close to what I would call impressive. I'm just missing something, maybe the input was to high (?) or I just don't know how to dial in a good bass tone.

The point is, my brother who is a bass player (I hope it's clear that I play the guitar), sent me his bass recorded for a new song of mine and I've made a preset and reamped the thing and it sounded worse than his bass directly in the mix. We're going to play together live soon, so besides the reamping and recording, I would like to prepare at least 2 presets, say one for funk and the other a bit tighter for metal. And all I want is him to say "wow!"

I would be glad if you could offer me a piece of advice, how to start, what's important or crucial, how do you do it and with which sound chain you get what you want? What are the parameters to tweak and so on. I don't actually have a bass but I would experiment further with his recording, I beleive that should be enough to achieve my goal. Even better, it will be made with his bass and his sound. I know I can download from Axechange but I would like to learn the details.

Sorry for this long intro and for my bad accent :) Thanks a lot in advance. All inputs are welcome.
 
Start simple and work up from there - go with just a drive pedal (or a B7K tone match that you like), one of the amps (Probably the SVT one would be the best start), and drive that straight to the output - no cabs, no other fx. Get the core, foundation tone laid down before you start building the house on it. Once you have that laid down, you can start really messing with what you already have - in that I'd change just EQ, drive levels and what not. Once you have that, you have something flexible and stable that you can layer other things on top of such as cabs, compressor etc.
Also keep in mind, a lot of what you know about the Axe is not directly applicable to the bass side of things. It'll take a little bit of a learning attempt on your end as well - mostly including a lot oftweaking and listening. But if you start with something very solid and basic, you have a good reference to fall back to when things go south with the new layers :).
If you want, when I get home later this evening, I can post a pretty basic setup that works well for anything and everything - what you layer on top is what will drive you to specific styles and tones. For funk, you're going to want transparent, Hi-FI type tone that can bring out a lot of the slap lines elegantly, yet have that undeniable kick in the teeth and fundamental. For metal, you might want a little drive and grit, as well as other FX to really bring things into focus.
What would also help is knowing what bass is recorded or being played - just as with guitar, the pickups, preamp and everything comes into play here, so what works so great for one person and their setup might not work at all for another.
 
selta said:
Start simple and work up from there - go with just a drive pedal (or a B7K tone match that you like), one of the amps (Probably the SVT one would be the best start), and drive that straight to the output - no cabs, no other fx. Get the core, foundation tone laid down before you start building the house on it. Once you have that laid down, you can start really messing with what you already have - in that I'd change just EQ, drive levels and what not. Once you have that, you have something flexible and stable that you can layer other things on top of such as cabs, compressor etc.
Also keep in mind, a lot of what you know about the Axe is not directly applicable to the bass side of things. It'll take a little bit of a learning attempt on your end as well - mostly including a lot oftweaking and listening. But if you start with something very solid and basic, you have a good reference to fall back to when things go south with the new layers :).
If you want, when I get home later this evening, I can post a pretty basic setup that works well for anything and everything - what you layer on top is what will drive you to specific styles and tones. For funk, you're going to want transparent, Hi-FI type tone that can bring out a lot of the slap lines elegantly, yet have that undeniable kick in the teeth and fundamental. For metal, you might want a little drive and grit, as well as other FX to really bring things into focus.
What would also help is knowing what bass is recorded or being played - just as with guitar, the pickups, preamp and everything comes into play here, so what works so great for one person and their setup might not work at all for another.
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Thanks a lot for your response. It sounds like a new approach for me to try it out. I've never thought of leaving the cab out for the beginning. If it wouldn't take you a lot of time, I would be happy to hear your preset. I believe if I'd have a good basis, the rest would be easier; EQ and compessor, like you've mentioned. I'm pretty satisfied with the stuff I've done with the bass in the mix (parallel track with overdrive, cut <50 HZ, fine EQ-ing, etc.) so I think I'll be able to fine tune it from there.

Looking forward if you find some time for it and thanks for the effort. You gave me already the basic idea.
 
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Yeah, no problem what so ever. I'll build out a generic one for you this evening and will post it here. If I have time I'll make the post educational on why I do what I do. I'd just post the foundation for mine, but it's pretty tweaked for my playing and my basses, so I don't think it'd translate too well to other people.
 
selta said:
Yeah, no problem what so ever. I'll build out a generic one for you this evening and will post it here. If I have time I'll make the post educational on why I do what I do. I'd just post the foundation for mine, but it's pretty tweaked for my playing and my basses, so I don't think it'd translate too well to other people.
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Hi selta!

Were you able to put something together? There's really no hurry, I'm just asking. Thanks.
 
Ugh. I'm too much of a perfectionist. I'll just grab the preset that I've been going back and forth on tonight and will post it here for you. It's decent - I'm just trying to make it "great" for every bass I plug in, passive P with flats through active 6 string EBMM... I think if I just post it as-is, it should be a good launching platform that you can build from and tweak.
 
selta said:
Ugh. I'm too much of a perfectionist. I'll just grab the preset that I've been going back and forth on tonight and will post it here for you. It's decent - I'm just trying to make it "great" for every bass I plug in, passive P with flats through active 6 string EBMM... I think if I just post it as-is, it should be a good launching platform that you can build from and tweak.
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Haha...I'm sure that it's going to sound good. But take your time...

Tell me another thing. Since the bass is your first instrument, what's the advantage of using a primarily guitar modeller? There are over 100 guitar amps inside and only a few bass amps...Not to mention the IRs. Is it still worth of it?
 
Well, I don't view the Axe-Fx 2 as a guitar-only piece of equipment, and I don't consider it a modeler either.
While nearly every block in the Axe-Fx 2 (with a few exceptions) are guitar amps/cabs/FX in "real life", they still function for bass instruments. Even in real life, you can plug a bass into a Marshall full stack if you want - you might blow the speakers, but the FX pedals and head will be fine. Just won't get the volume you'd want/need in most applications.
The presets out of the box are 100% for guitar as well. I still demoed all of them, but nearly all of them were useless for me. This is both a blessing and a curse - I don't have to revisit several hundred presets for bass each time I'm looking for something or a new firmware comes out. But, I'm also stuck with starting out on my own blank slate from the get-go (which, again, isn't inherently a bad thing, just a "thing" to consider).
In the digital realm, you don't have speakers that will blow up. So even though the Vox AC-30 is a guitar amp, if I like its tone stack, I can put it in as a block with any (or no) cab, the FX I want, and be fine. Even with zero tweaking it'll work and sound pretty much like an AC-30. If I want to (and do) get crazy with it, I start going into the advanced pages and tweaking away to make it more of what I'm looking for - there's no need to do this, but I'm glad the option is there, and that I have the knowledge to know what these things should be doing (at least, what they'd do on a "real" amp).
Same with the FX blocks. They all work for bass out of the gate, and the parameters still do their given function. Somethings are a little wonky, but it's easily workable. For instance, a lot of the drive blocks "kick in" (get dirty) quicker with bass than they do guitar. That's just physics at work.
The cabs are fine, though a lot of the guitar cabs I would have to do a lot of tweaking to make what I'd want for bass application. So I just stick with a few of the bass IRs I found, or just go without a cab block at all. In most cases I just go without, as it serves my purpose better. Some bits of guitar tone is from the mechanical breakup introduced by the speakers... we don't really have that in bass-land. Our cabs are more just fancy EQ curves - some people like SWR for their smoothness, Schroeders for their mid range bark, Ampeg for their punchy fatness and so on. I've generally gone for "FRFR" as you all call it here, so skipping a cab all together is just moving me closer to that ideal. Bass players have had 2 and 3 way cabs for ages now which gets us damn close to FRFR - at least, as close as you can with the frequencies we deal with.
Add it all together, and it functions A-OK for bass. It does take a bit more tweaking all around to get to ideal tones in the amp and FX blocks. But, it's still worth it.

I also play many other instruments, as does my wife, so we are an a-typical use case. I haven't heard of too many violinists, upright bassists, harp or other instruments using these :).

Anyway, I hope that answers your question.
 
Alright, here is what I came up with for starting place. It's still not great, but it should give you an idea of where to jump from. I inserted some more blocks that I commonly use with some settings that I have for my EBMM Bongos - they may or may not work at all for you. The main things I would suggest tweaking right off the bat are the EQs and nothing else. Depending on what tone you're going for will determine how you'll change them. For rock/metal, I'd bring the low and high mids up a good deal and leave most everything else. For R&B, soul, funk type stuff I'd leave all the mids alone and give yourself a hefty dose of lows and highs. But, just tweak around and remember that cutting is more powerful than piling on (boosting), especially when you're dealing with bass.

View attachment Selta Bass v1.syx
 
selta said:
Alright, here is what I came up with for starting place. It's still not great, but it should give you an idea of where to jump from. I inserted some more blocks that I commonly use with some settings that I have for my EBMM Bongos - they may or may not work at all for you. The main things I would suggest tweaking right off the bat are the EQs and nothing else. Depending on what tone you're going for will determine how you'll change them. For rock/metal, I'd bring the low and high mids up a good deal and leave most everything else. For R&B, soul, funk type stuff I'd leave all the mids alone and give yourself a hefty dose of lows and highs. But, just tweak around and remember that cutting is more powerful than piling on (boosting), especially when you're dealing with bass.

View attachment 23335
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That's great! Thanks a lot. I hope to try it out tonight but give me a few days before I get back with a feedback. Thanks also for the EQ-ing tips, that's good to know. And the third thanks for the detailed explanation, it makes sense. Now I'm looking forward to play with your preset. Till soon...
 
Selta, I've finally found some time to try your preset, using headphones as usual. I think I have to hear it with a real bass, with a real amplification, to hear the complete sound spectrum. I'm sure it works much better loud in a room with a real bass than using a sample and reamping it through the phones. I've saved your preset on my Axe FX but will have to wait for the next opportunity, which could take some time. The stuff you wrote above explained to me a lot about different approach with a bass (FRFR) than with guitar (mechanical breakup simulation). That's why I got a better sound directly in the mix. I'm really looking forward to experiment with your preset our next rehearsal but, sadly, I live in another country than the rest of my band, so the next time is postponed probably even to next year...If I find a way to do it before, I'll let you know what my results were.

I very much appreciate your time, tips and effort.
 
don_joe, no worries what so ever. I hope other people find this useful. No matter what, you'll need to do some amount of tweaking to the preset to get it really dialed in. For the gear I have here, it's a decent starting point - but it might not be great for other gear :). Either way, whenever you do get a chance to try it (even if it is next year), I'd love to hear your feedback on it. Good luck!
 
Hi selta!

It's been a while but I promised you to get back to you with some feedback. I borrowed a bass guitar from a friend to test a few presets, to see how they work. I now finally see what you've done in yours. Thanks for putting PEQs in parallel, this showed me, as you explained above, different EQ settings for different music styles, a great learning effect for me. What I like is that the most settings like in compressor block are left at default and it works ok even without much tweaking. I have also downloaded a few presets from seedoftheday (see post #9 from zombieritual) and I see he keeps his settings mostly at deafult too. I'm glad that that works for the bass so simple. I didn't play live and loud yet with your preset but it sounds full. There is not much work to do if I adjust it for a live tone, I'm sure. As I said, this was very useful for me to learn the bass signal chain in FX2 from a professional :) Now I can keep this bass instrument as long as I want (considering buying one too) and I'm looking forward to experiment some more.

Thanks a lot!
 
don_joe,
Glad it worked out for you. Usually, starting with what is there is decent enough. I didn't do a lot of tweaking on the blocks themselves since it is heavily dependent on the bass, technique and your FOH/stage setups. I know my exact presets likely won't be well received (honestly, they sound somewhat bad in a solo play setting - but sound great in my particular band's setting, with our gear and sound engineer).

If you ever have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me, k?
 
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